new book "the rejected stone." i'll be at the martin luther king memorial library at 7:30 p.m. that's at 901 g street northwest on the fourth floor. hope to see all of you there. as we see what happens tonight, the rejected stones help bring a new corner stone in american politics. thanks for watching. i'm al sharpton. "hardball" starts right now. good evening, i'm chris matthews in washington. it's election day in many state ace cross the country. and some key races may provide a clue to where the country is headed in 2014 and 2016. the most consequential race is in virginia. it's 7:00 on the east coast now and polls are now closed in virginia. nbc news is characterizing the virginia governors race as too early to call but we can say terry mcauliffe is leading now

over republican ken cuccinelli. virginians are also voting to choose a new attorney general. and democrats hope after tonight they will hold all three offices. plus both u.s. senate seats. in new jersey polls close in one hour where governor chris christie has held a substantial lead in his re-election effort. christie's already considered to be a major contender for the 2016 republican presidential nomination. and, of course, a win in this blue northeastern state would make his argument that the gop wins when it runs mainstream conservative candidates not tea partiers on the fringes. and in new york city, democrat bill de blasio has an enormous lead in pre-election polls. he's poised to be the first democratic mayor of the largest city in 24 years. howard fineman and david corn. both are, of course, msnbc political analysts. howard, tonight what you know,

share. >> what i know is that the new virginia, the virginia that elected barack obama twice looks like it's coming out in substantial numbers for terry cauliffe. and there's a new south in virginia. virginia is now a swing state. virginia especially its northern suburbs around the washington area where i understand the turnout is pretty strong, that's terry mcauliffe, the democrats' territory. i think the government shutdown clearly hurt ken cuccinelli, the republican who is identified with the tea party. and identified with antagonism to government. antagonism to the federal government used to be a watch word of virginia as well as the rest of the south. virginia is now a mixed state up for grabs. tea party candidates are going to have a hard time winning in a state like virginia. >> and, david, the exit polling taken by voters as they left the

polling places today showed no big love nor the tea party. >> no. 43% of the people who were polled today say they opposed the tea party. if you look at all the big issues that animated the political debates over the last couple months whether it was cultural wars like abortion or the government shutdown, we see a very strong reaction to this electorate against the conservative side on those issues. one out of five voters, i think this was a high number, said they thought abortion was their top issue in this election. and of those people -- >> and the evidence is that they're pro-choice. >> 61-40 percent. >> we have to keep reminding ourselves that virginia is so important because it is exactly the bellwether state for the union. just about exactly what the nation is. >> i would say virginia has become the new ohio in many ways. richard nixon used to say it's all about ohio. it's all about virginia now. and the fact that women turned out in overwhelming numbers

apparently in support of terry mcauliffe is big. >> let's look at that number. the nbc news exit poll shows women in virginia breaking for terry mcauliffe in a big way while men are split. women give mcauliffe is 16-point edge. that is something. david corn. >> it goes back to what i was just saying. the issue of abortion which often doesn't motivate voters, doesn't turn elections. we know that. we've been studying this for decades now. seems to be a key fight. and that's, of course, cuccinelli, he was the conservative poster boy on all these cultural issues. abortions being top amongst them. here we've had this argument in washington. ted cruz and others saying the republican party has to go to the right, has to get out the traditionalist voters. that's not working for cuccinelli who otherwise was an attractive candidate. >> in many ways he was unsuited to go after the career women, the professional women, the

working women of northern virginia who are part of the orbit of metropolitan washington and aren't going to stand for what joe biden in the last day of the campaign called sinking from another era. >> think about that for a second. we're all three white guys here by coincidence, but it's a fact. and i'm looking at these numbers. it tells you that the white men in this country are not calling the shots. look at these numbers. cuccinelli in the exit poll, he sweeps him by 26 points. yet it looks like mcauliffe is going to win comfortably. yet the white men say we're going for cuccinelli who's gotten some of the worst press, he's made one bad day after another. now look at this. white women. we've been saying around this table that the white women -- all women i should say. across the state of virginia are very pro-choice and inclined to give a big number to mcauliffe. 48 to 43 white women went.

it's so different than the way white men vote in their own households. >> i would divide it, chris, between northern virginia which as i said is part of metropolitan washington at this point. from richmond north, it's a mixed swing state. and rural southern virginia which is where i think it's fair to say the split by gender is still much more. >> if you look at the numbers of, say, black men and women. black women, 95 to 5 for mcauliffe over cuccinelli. >> obviously if you're a minority in this country we know you have other issues besides gender driving your vote. >> exactly. but after the last election, the gop did an internal autopsy and said, listen, we can't win national elections. and this kind of looks like a national election. if we keep losing all latinos, all african-americans. >> that's the point i made a minute ago. >> we can't close the gap.

>> the point i'm making here is white men are not a leading indicator of anything. >> the other thing -- the other dividing point, chris, is often between married with children, church going. married with children church going whites tend to be conservative and there's a lot of them in virginia. >> let's look at the latest we have. there's a lot of exit polling information to give you. cuccinelli's positions on social issues worked against him. six in ten virginia voters support legal abortion in all or most cases. i think that's a particularly high percentage. it's usually in the low 50s. >> if you look at the turnout, you'll see the democrats 39%, republicans 30%, a big gap there. i think when it comes to women who care about abortion, which happen to be democrats, they were motivated to go to the polls. but the turnout was from ken cuccinelli. he drove them to the polls. >> that was terry mcauliffe's

strategy from the beginning to hammer on women's issues especially on abortion and health. >> and even on divorce. >> especially in northern virginia in the washington media market. he hammered cuccinelli who as david said was ill suited to defend. >> because of his record. let me point out something that's fascinating. i don't want to generalize. if you went to college, you got more liberal. look at the percentage of voters turning out today. 63% of the voters today finished college. not just started. full four year college. that's a very educated electorate. >> the other part is if you look at who supported, the poorest people and the least educated supported terry mcauliffe, but also the wealthiest and most educated supported terry mcauliffe. and that fed into terry mcauliffe's argument that ken cuccinelli was anti-science. that ken cuccinelli sued the

university of virginia's attorney general for its research on climate change. now, that may sound like an obtuse issue. but that was an appeal that really stuck. >> and i also think we're looking now -- i don't know whether president clinton or the former secretary state hillary clinton will show up tonight, but clearly they are identified very much with this victory if he wins. the exit poll also asked voters throughout virginia how they feel about the tea party. this is fascinating. 30% of voters in virginia say they support the tea party. 43% say they are opposed. david, this is interesting. let's take another point here. the poll also asked voters who they think is more to blame nfo the federal shutdown. 49% blame republicans in congress. joining me now right across the

potomac is nbc political director chuck todd. we were looking at movies of the clintons joining mcauliffe in what looked like a victory performance. obviously that hasn't happened yet. we're getting good numbers from our nbc experts. your thoughts. >> well, here's the best way to look at who voted today. this looks a lot more like 2012 than 2009 here in virginia. remember, 2009 was a more conservative electorate. it was an electorate that did not look very democratic and we had the republican bob macdonald landslide. you put up those numbers on abortion at 61% essentially the pro-choice position. in 2012 in virginia, it was 63%. so within margin of error. so you're seeing the national, the type of voter that came out in 2013 looks a lot more like 2012 which would be good news for terry mcauliffe which is why we're comfortable characterizing

it as a mcauliffe lead right now. the other thing that strikes me right now is given the president we have exit polled virginia now -- every time we talked about the president's job approval rating. as virginia goes, so goes the nation. this is the lowest approval rating we've recorded on election day in virginia since he's been in office. he had a 48% approval rating in 2009. down to 46% tonight. when the health care law has a higher approval rating in virginia than the president himself, the folks in the white house got a realize here in virginia, if they got a problem here they got a problem nationally. >> isn't it interesting and i've watched it on this program every night. although the president is down, there's no doubt the morale of his people is down right now because of the relentless assault on his program, health care, and the other issues that have bugged him like syria and the rest of it. there hasn't been a happy cloud

scene in months now. his enemies are much less popular than him. in fact, they're growing in the unpopularity. that's what's so fascinating. what i find is what people are reacting to on the moderate side is not so much their enthusiasm for the president right now as much as their antipathy towards attackers. >> and not only that, chris, this is a huge -- if you're the national republicans and you're looking at this exit poll, you should potentially be in full panic mode if it turns out that this is what the electorate looks like and mcauliffe does win. because the president's at a 46% approval rating. normally you would say that's bad news for the democrats. but mcauliffe still was able to win. it shows what you just said is absolutely right. it's where the republicans position themselves here. outside of where virginia believes the republican party should be. so this is -- if you're a republican party strategist, this is a very scary moment for you because the president's

not -- does not have a good approval rating here in virginia tonight. and guess what. it still looks like it's potentially good news for democrats. that is a nightmare scenario in 2014. >> here's another factor, chris. even though the public in virginia was split on whom to blame for the shutdown, if you were affected by the shutdown and according to this exit poll one out of three families was affected in virginia by the federal government shutdown, you voted almost two to one for terry mcauliffe. you rejected the strategy of shutdown that the republicans put forth. so even though you were divided in terms of theoretically who you blamed, if it affected you, you voted for mcauliffe. >> that becomes a voting issue for the people who are working for the government and got screwed around and played with and mocked a lot of that time. >> all this goes to the larger point that this election is not about barack obama. it's not even about health care. >> he's lucky it's not. >> if you look at the exit poll -- he's lucky it's not, but he's not running for anything.

>> his enemies are on trial. >> the republicans are unlucky because it's about issues they've been pressing that the public has turned on. and so it's about the shape of the electorate. >> later tonight we're going to get to the other look at this country from the northeastern look where a relatively moderate republican, non-tea party conservative is up for re-election. looks like he might well win it. yet here we're getting early in the evening a look. chuck, last word. chuck? >> yeah, go ahead, chris. >> i just wanted you to throw a little thought here about new jersey so we don't get understa unbalanced here. we're getting a hard look at virginia here. what will we get to maybe back that up in new jersey where they say, you know, we like this more moderate republican. >> and that's going to be the contrast tonight, right? to me this election day has been about not cuccinelli versus

mcauliffe or obama care and all that. to me it's about the republican party and cuccinelli versus christie. christie went one way with his campaign. i was on the trail with him yesterday and everything was talking about the bipartisan way that he governs. he called himself a conservative, in fact he says it a lot. i've noticed, by the way, the more someone calls themselves a progressive or conservative, it means people question whether they're really a progressive or conservative. he would say that. he would talk about governing in a bipartisan way. the messaging here among republicans is look at the last days of cuccinelli. send a message to the president. this is about health care. he's with rubio, with rand paul. so it's two different campaigns. and i tell you, one looks like it's headed to a landslide in favor of the republicans. and one could be responsible for what in virginia could be an

historic defeat. remember, if mcauliffe does win, first time in 40 years that virginia will vote the same -- will not elect a governor opposite of the party in the white house, but elect a governor of the same party in the white house. >> chuck, great reporting. we'll be back to you again and again tonight. thank you howard fineman, expertise at the table and david corn. couldn't think of better guys to have here. coming up, terry mcauliffe keyed in on women's issues to win votes. it's a strategy they will try to use against republicans. the gender gap, a big plus for democrats. we'll see if it pays off tonight. the virginia governors race, too early to call by the experts. but msnbc mcauliffe with the lead. this is "hardball," the place for politics. when we made our commitment to the gulf, bp had two big goals:

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welcome back to "hardball." polls close in the state of new jersey at 8:00 p.m. eastern tonight. and in the state of new york, 9:00 p.m. eastern. we continue to watch the results in the virginia's governor race where it closed at 7:00. saying right now at nbc it's too early to call, but nbc's also saying that democrat terry mcauliffe is leading despite the early numbers. we're seeing with just 1% of the numbers in, mcauliffe outspent two to one in the final weeks. mcauliffe's ads aggressively attack cuccinelli women's stands. positions taken before this campaign were trumpeted from an ad blitz from mcauliffe. this view on divorce aired the most.

more than 2100 times. and here it is. >> if cuccinelli had it his way, a mom trying to get out of a bad marriage over her husband's objections could only get out if she could prove adultery or physical abuse. he's focused on his own agenda. not us. >> mcauliffe used his views on women's issues and birth control and transvaginal probes. and violence against women to attack cuccinelli. it's a strategy democrats across the country may use in 2014. margie o'mara is a pollster and across the potomac, political director chuck todd. i should tell everybody we are right on the edge of virginia. virginia is a commuting distance from washington.

and many people we call northern virginians really work eight hours a day, 47, 50 hours a week in washington, d.c. or right around it. mar marge, first woman on the show to talk. this voting thing. all us who grew up here that woman come to washington to get jobs. when they get here not a lot are married. they go to their high-rises right across the river. they get the jobs, they move up the chain hopefully in their profession. and they are very pro-choice as a group. that may be iconic. is it true and does that explain the numbers? >> in the exit polls you show almost two to one that voters overall not just women are pro-choice. and one thing i never heard, i've been talking to voters for about 20 years. i've never heard a woman say you know what the government should do, they should make it difficult for me to get a divorce. if any husband doesn't want to get divorced and i want to divorce, i want the government to get involved and stop it. >> what would be -- you sound

like you're against it which would make perfect sense. why would anybody in politics want to make it more difficult for a person who dissolve what is even potentially a dangerous marriage? >> i could not tell you why someone would think that is a smart policy idea or smart political idea. it's not just divorce. >> it must have some motive. somebody must dig it. >> i mean, some of the things cuccinelli supports, he's against contraception. >> he's against the birth control pill. >> he's been against a variety of birth control. >> let me go to a reasonable republican here. tom davis, you represent northern virginia for years. what does it mean to you your party is running a guy in big trouble tonight because of these what most people would call extreme positions on women's rights. >> northern virginia, this hasn't played. virginia's played this before in the doug wilder campaign after the webster decision at the supreme court. so we've had referendums on this before. you've got to remember is that

the president's at an all-time low in virginia in terms of favorable ratings. mcauliffe was viewed at the time as somebody with little connection. they're losing to him while christie is running ahead in new jersey. the question to ask is what is wrong with this? and for the midterms, which republican team are you going to put in the field? a tea party type team or somebody like christie? >> had this race been run on the republican side by a pro-choice, could there be a republican pro-choice candidate? >> you can be pro-life and win. joe warner was pro-life. he didn't wear it on his sleeve. i don't think that's a definitive issue. but when you get into birth control and marriage, that's not good. >> wla do you think this is going to say to the country? we're going to be talking about. more voters are women than men.

cuccinelli made an issue of going on these women's issues. even though he's a guy on the right side of -- right wing side of things. >> if you want to win, you need to take popularing positions. and also the priority and tone. and for a lot of voters, women in particular, they're thinking why are these issues a top priority? then there's also the tone. cuccinelli, he's been all over the place. but before that he was a real crusader. that tone turns a lot of women off. candidates on both parties who want to be successful need to think about are they really demonstrating they are speaking to women and understanding women. >> time for a dumb question. a voting issue in politics is an issue that changes how you vote. for example, one of my brothers is a gun guy. okay? gun issues are what matter to him. he will vote for or against someone on gun issues. on issues affecting women, do women go to the polls place and vote one way or the other in the

main on the choice question, on abortion rights? would that be an issue to drive you one way or the other? tom davis says you might get elected as a pro-life republican. would a woman vote for a pro-life republican? >> yes, i think so. >> even though it's against their views. >> there are women who think that's they're number one issue. there are a lot of women that's not their number one issue. there's a lot to what constitutes it. >> let me lower the bar. when you have a guy running who says i don't believe in birth control. i don't believe in any abortion under any circumstance including rape and incest. >> if he's against aca, he's against long-term maternity care coverage. >> then that would be an issue. >> then you're talking about a guy who has prioritized a series of issues that make women's lives harder. and without any kind of tone demonstrating he is understanding women or listening to women or fighting for them. >> if cuccinelli gets killed

tonight, destroyed politically, loses by ten points. i don't know what the numbers are going to end up. will this change the view of republican party in virginia? your party, your commonwealth as to where their future lies? >> if the whole ticket goes down, the attorney general's race in contention. >> and you lose legislative seats too. >> if we lose all three, it would be the first time in 44 years we haven't had a republican elected statewide. that would get a lot of people talking. >> okay. thank you. thanks tom davis as always. thank you margie o'mara. and thank you chuck todd over there across the river. up next, a look at what tonight's early results may tell us about the 2016 presidential race. this is going to be interesting. and this is "hardball," the place for politics. [ brent ] this guy's a pro, herbie.

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we continue to watch, of course, the governor's race in virginia where it's too early to call between democrat terry mcauliffe and republican ken cuccinelli. but mcauliffe has the lead. despite the early numbers we're seeing right now. anyway, polls close in the other big governors race tonight in new jersey. it's 8:00 p.m. eastern as the closing time. and the incumbent there chris christie is looking to rack up a big win as a spring board to a now probable presidential run. the reason we're interested in chris christie is because he's considered to be a likely mainstream candidate. and we asked in new jersey who they would vote for if he ran against hillary clinton. here are the numbers. they don't surprise me. 49% favored hillary rodham clinton in a democratic state. 43% were for the incumbent governor there. with me now john feehery and steve mcmahon. it's so fascinating. but hillary clinton is a media star. she's a worldwide celebrity

who's got no blemish on her, she comes into this thing still as the iconic figure to beat. around here the executive producer and i were trying to figure out numbers. we all thought that christie would lose to her about five or six. hillary's beating him in his own state right now. >> i remember when everyone thought it's going to be hillary clinton and rudy giuliani. remember that? i think it would be a huge boost for chris christie. he's proven he could win. >> close to hillary running with her in the exit polls. >> i think it makes him look very good. very blue state. and you know what? if he's going to be the favored son, i predict if he runs against hillary -- >> let me tell you something. we're the kitsds that snuck down around midnight to see what was going on. get this straight. we're the ones that look early. okay? your thoughts. >> here's what's interesting. he's a favored son in new jersey. she's a favored daughter. chris christie should be

stronger than he is against hillary clinton right now. this is his high water mark. no one's laid a glove on him yet. >> don't you think hillary remains sort of beyond politics at this point? she's still coming off the secretary of state. >> she's a little beyond politics. but her numbers have actually come down in the six or eight weeks she's gone off the radar screen. what's interesting about new jersey, if you think about the democrats' advantage, democrats start at about 242 electoral votes. it's not hard to get 270. one of the last states to move from the red to blue column is new jersey. it used to be a purple state. it's a red state now. republicans need to move some red states -- i'm sorry, some blue states to the red column now in order to win a presidential race. if christie can't do it in jersey -- >> i've always thought christie -- my opinion is christie does better in states like ohio than most republicans. but against hillary, if hillary runs let's face it she's the formidable front runner.

let me ask you about this poll number. in new jersey asking people who voted in jersey, do you think chris christie would make a good president? 51-45. i don't think the ads run by senator buono who ran against him saying he was going to run for president, she was going to run for governor. somebody told me that was bill clinton's idea. i don't think that hurt christie. i think they'd be proud to have a president from the state. >> i agree. those numbers aren't that terrific. things are not that great in new jersey. he was a spectacular candidate. he ran a great campaign. this is a big question that should be a little bit better. >> it should be better than 51-45. >> people in jersey tend to be negative to begin with. >> you mean like christie. >> i agree with your point. he will do well in places like michigan and pennsylvania and indiana and ohio. >> get back to that point. we don't know what's going to happen. the polls aren't going to close until 8:00 eastern. we're not going to talk about

what happened because we don't know. saying he just wants to run for president, i'm running for governor. do you think that works? >> it was stupid. there's no other way to say it. but john said something that's very insightful. >> thank you. >> 51% in a state where he's going to get close to 60%, maybe more of the vote. 51% think he'd be a good president. he might be a good candidate in ohio, but we're never going to know because we can't get through what you're looking at in states like alabama tonight where there's a tea party mainstream. >> there's a tea party guy that's maybe going to win. and he's a birther. >> christie can't get through a republican primary now. >> one of the most fascinating things we're going to watch, you have a civil war in the republican party right now. where these red states really are red and they want more red. then you have people, pennsylvania, ohio, new jersey all the way to new england who are looking for something that might win the general election. and they also think they're not as right wing. look at the numbers out of

virginia tonight. only 30% are big on the tea party. 47% against it. >> i disagree with steve. follow the money. the fact of the matter is chris christie had an overwhelming fund raising advantage. ken couuccinelli got killed in e fund raising. >> look at alabama, all the money was with the candidate. he's probably going to lose to the tea party guy with no money. >> i think there's evidence that it's not the king caucus they thought it was. thank you john feehery and steve mcmahon. this debate will go on for three years. up next, reince priebus wants you to think that president obama has created a culture of ray tread. hey, reince, didn't you start the fight? by the way, that's too sophisticated a term for you. and we'll return with more returns of the virginia's governors race. still too early to call, but mcauliffe has the lead in our exit polling in virginia. you're watching "hardball," the place for politics. [ will ] o is the new dodge durango. she's got it all. including 25 em-puh-guh's highway.

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♪ welcome back to "hardball." the governors race in virginia still too early to call, but according to our exit polling, democrat terry mcauliffe has the lead. there it is. now to the republican party chairman reince priebus. last night on fox priebus levied from serious accusations against president obama. >> it's the culture that the president's cultivated here. i mean, a culture of dishonesty, a culture of hatred. >> well, a culture of hatred. choice words from the leader of the republican party which has been blinded by an obsession to destroy president obama's legitimacy. but it goes further than that

under priebus. look at this map. just this year under priebus' sterling leadership, republicans in more than 35 states have advanced countless pieces of legislation designed to restrict voting rights. according to the advancement project, the civil rights group which tracks voting rights issues. these are voter suppression bills which disproportionately impact african-americans and other minorities. and old people and very young people. this has been priebus' calling card. exclusion. his party shut down the government on the affordable care act. and threatened to blow up the economy to destroy the president's legacy. yet in his world it's president obama who has the culture problem. michael steele was the rnc chairman before priebus, back when they won all the time. jonathan capehart is opinion writer with "the washington post." let me go to this, mr. chairman. this -- why would you choose to

hit the other party with the exact same thing you could be accused of which is a culture of -- i'm not sure you can get a motive here, but certainly an effort to suppress the vote you know is probably going against you. the black vote. so you can see they're just against them because they vote democrat. nothing to do with the prejudice. >> when you point your fingers like that, you have to make sure they're not pointed back at yourself. in this case i think the language was incendiary. i cannot make the case legitimately that this administration has cultivated hate. not when as jonathan will talk about in a moment, you have, you know, folks with the flags on the front lawn of the white house that remind us of the old south. and the party was silent on that. so i think that kind of rhetoric disbelies any effort to expand the party. people look at you delegitimize any efforts of that. no one's buying it. >> i'm not african-american, but i have to tell you. i think everybody saw "42" about

jackie robinson. did you see it? >> i did not actually. >> you should. it's great and about a guy incredibly gifted as an athlete. great athlete and great baseball player. he gets in the major leagues as the first african-american player, but his biggest challenge is not to fight back. i imagine what it must have been like for the president of the united states to watch that in the family movie theater and i'm sure he did and watch the guy and said to himself a thousand times in an hour and a half, that's what i do every day. >> right. especially if the first term when he was the first one, the first african-american occupant of the oval office. all eyes are on him. as i've written before and as chairman steele knows as an african-american and an african-american man, the idea of showing anger, rage, anything whether you are a garbage collector or you're president of the united states is a no-no. if you're an african-american man. now, you know, freed by not

having to have to run for re-election, the president can be more fully himself in staring down the bullies in the other party who are beating the hell out of him every day as you said trying to delegitimatize him. he can push back. but he'll push back in his own sort of understated way. but the idea that chairman priebus would say that the president of the united states is cultivating a culture of hatred is laughable. and a little bit precious. when you look at the fact that we are still dealing with members of congress, sitting members of congress who are saying that the president -- they entertain the idea of impeaching the president of the united states because they're still not quite sure whether he was born here. >> and by the way, there's another guy running down in alabama on the republican ticket trying to get a nomination for congress down there for the house who basically has terrible things to say about the president. and basically says he's from kenya. with all the evidence we have, all the paperwork.

anyway, you could make the argument that a culture of hatred has been on display at every level of the gop since reince priebus became chairman. here's just a recent sampling of what i'm talking about starting with reince himself. >> as far as harry reid is concerned, listen. i know you might want to go down that road. i'm not going to respond to a dirty liar. >> republican brenda barton compared president obama to hitler on facebook. she said, quote, someone is paying the national park service thugs overtime for their efforts to carry out the effort of de fuhrer. >> i couldn't stand being there. >> i call upon all of you to wage the second non-violent revolution, to use civil disobedience, and to demand that this president leave town, to get out, to put the koran down.

>> what you can do to stop these communist executive orders laid down by this foreign-born, american-hating communist. what can you do for me? >> we have our work cut out for us. we need to send barack obama back to chicago, i'd like to send him back to kenya, back to indonesia. >> yeah. there's always applause for that. you know, that's the problem. there's always applause in those rooms. >> it is. and that's sad because when i was chairman, we never made any of what we did about barack obama. it was always about the ideas and the policies that he was trying to get implemented. so the fight over health care, the fight over cap and trade. and now we've digressed into this personal vehement attack on the man on his person. you know, from having the flags to silliness like that. >> the nazi faces. thank you, michael. in 2010, you won. jonathan capehart, thank you.

and michael steele. we continue to follow the returns from virginia tonight with the race too early to call. we're seeing it's democrat terry mcauliffe in the lead. those are raw numbers. our polls show him leading. coming up at the top of the hour, polls will be closed in new jersey where chris christie is looking for a big re-elect victory. and this is "hardball," the place for politics. is is the qur cash back card from capital one. it's not the "fumbling around with rotating categories" card. it's not the "getting blindsided by limits" card. it's the no-game-playing, no-earning-limit-having, deep-bomb-throwing, give-me-the-ball-and-i'll-take- it-to-the-house, cash back card. this is the quicksilver cash card from capital one. unlimited 1.5% cash back on every purchase, everywhere, every single day. so let me ask you... what's in your wallet? ♪ stacy's mom has got it goin' on ♪ ♪ stacy's mom has got it goin' on ♪

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i will suggest that come tomorrow morning's newspapers, all the big papers across the country, and the republican party chairman and the republican party chairman will be looking at those pictures. one victory is going to be chris christie in new jersey. the humiliating defeat by cuccineli is going to say that americans don't like zealots, the extreme left or right. but right now they're afraid of the right. >> romney didn't win because he was too moderate. they got their contest in virginia and it looks like he's going to be worse than mitt romn romney. the voters opposed to the tea party, just flocked to terry mcauliffe. i think one exception is going

to be new york city, where you're going to have a very progressive guy get elected today. the republican party is going to have to move to the center, and the democrats are moving a little bit. >> i think that boehner has been so afraid of the right because he needs 218, 217 to get anything done. so he's been leaning over to the craziest right and now we're getting more of a picture of the dog. well, it's an elephant is what it is. >> and if john boehner is looking at these exit polls from both virginia and new jersey, he'll see the dog. the dog is the self-described moderates who make up the biggest plurality of voters in both states, both virginia and

new jersey. voted by a two to one margin for both mcauliffe and for christie. i find it fascinating in both states. if you look at the numbers on the health care law, on obama care, which rush limbaugh and ted cruz think is this political stick of dynamite that's going to blow up america, the fact that both states, it's a push and it's not the political disaster that ted cruz and the tea party think it is. >> we'll be welcome back with more in just a moment. if yand you're talking toevere rheuyour rheumatologistike me, about trying or adding a biologic. this is humira, adalimumab.

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we're back with nbc's chuck todd and e.j. dion of the "washington post." let's go to chuck todd over across the river. chuck, do you see the beginnings of a headline tomorrow with the total picture we're getting right now? >> reporter: i think the total -- cuccineli versus christie. nothing is over here in virginia. you never know, you got to wait until all the votes are counted, but if the exit poll is headed in that direction, i think you're going to have the establishment wing of the republican party, because this happened in their backyard in virginia and see the results, particularly in northern virginia and they're going to

say it's time to push back on the tea party wing of the party that's doing damage, because when you look at --. the tea party is over, the republican party has a hangover and the people that didn't drink the tea like chris christie are okay tonight. >> i think virginia is the new ohio. it's the indication of where american politics is headed. if it rejects the tea party, as it looks like they're going to do, that's something that john boehner and mitch mcconnell need to pay close attention to. >> it's been quite a night, a very interesting night. i agree with both my colleagues here, i think a message is being sent to the main stream of the republican party. if you want to win elections, pay close